Celebrating Women: Chef’s Dinner
Date: March 13, 2022
Time: 5:30pm
Venue: Waldo Thai
In celebration of Women’s History Month, we are happy to announce a dinner at Waldo Thai on Sunday, March 13 featuring food and beverage by some of the best names in town. Your 5 course meal will begin with an amuse bouche and includes cocktails and wine pairings for $200 per ticket. We are proud to be donating to Hope House KC.
The dinner will be collaboration of chefs who have positively impacted our local industry through their work ethic, advocacy for women, and of course, their delicious food:
Helen Jo Leach, The Town Company
Jennifer Le Blanc, Tavern in The Village
Katee McLean, Performance Food Service/ Reinhart
Pam Liberda, Waldo Thai
Laura Valdivia, Cliff's Taphouse
Pairing wine and cocktails with this dinner are local bartenders, also promoting positivity and strong representation of women behind the bar, and will feature wineries and distilleries owned and ran by women:
Saranya Hubbard, Swordfish Tom’s
Jenn Tosatto, Gael's Public House and Sports
Reservations go live on 2pm, Tuesday, Feb 22, 2022. Reservations are offered for pairs of 2 and groups of 4, 6 and 8. To maximize our seating, groups will likely be paired together at tables. We’re excited to introduce new friends to each other over cocktails and a delicious dinner! For the safety of our guests and staff, this event will require proof of vaccination showing full vaccinated status* OR negative PCR test dated within 72 hours of the event.
Hope House KC is dedicated to making sure every man, woman, and child affected by domestic violence can find refuge and freedom. Hope House provides domestic violence victims with shelter and comprehensive services including therapy, education, outreach, personal and hygienic necessities, and more. For more information, visit their website at hopehouse.net
Helen Jo Leach
The Town Company
Executive Pastry Chef Helen Jo Leach leads The Town Company’s dessert program, The Lobby Café, and events programs at Hotel Kansas City. Leach’s Midwestern-inspired approach to pastry incorporates native ingredients and experimentation with the restaurant’s centerpiece hearth, bringing her wealth of acumen, artistry, and excitement to The Town Company’s and Hotel Kansas City’s pastry programs.
Helen’s talents opened doors to work at esteemed spots, including Eleven Madison Park, and Del Posto – the restaurant where she met her husband - and she assisted Christina Tosi in opening and building the Momofuku Milk Bar empire. After eight lively years in New York City, she moved to the Pacific Northwest, where her leadership shaped the dessert program at Le Pigeon in Portland, Oregon.
In her free time, Leach enjoys art projects, eating ice cream and exploring Kansas City with husband, Johnny and their daughter, Perri.
Jennifer Le Blanc
Tavern in The Village
Jennifer Le Blanc comes from a long line of women who have spent their careers in the kitchen. Her grandmother cooked professionally while raising six children. Le Blanc’s mother and twin sister also spent their careers in the culinary world.
Le Blanc thought she wanted to go to school for psychology, but ultimately she felt that cooking was in her blood. At the age of 18, she took a job as a dishwasher and realized she was fascinated by the professional kitchen. All it took was one Chef investing time in teaching her to roast garlic and teaching her the fundamentals and she was hooked. She wanted to learn everything anyone would teach her from every station and from every Chef’s book she could find. By age 22, Le Blanc was encouraged to reconsider her career path by her superiors, and she enrolled in culinary school at the Art Institute of San Bernardino, California.
For the past decade she has been in Kansas City, eight of those years at Tavern in the Village, working with local farmers, purveyors, and cheese companies to bring the best, seasonally-inspired dishes to guests. The Tavern strives to be a respected neighborhood gem delivering classics like hand-cut filets and house-blended Angus burgers, and even striving to make the best crispy chicken sandwiches for those on a search. Hers is served with hot chili honey, house-made spicy garlic pickles, and garden herb mayo! Le Blanc’s goal is to have something for everyone to enjoy.
She’s been acutely aware that succeeding as a woman chef in the industry would require considerable effort, but feels fortunate to work with an owner, co-managers, and a kitchen staff that stands behind her and supports her, where together they can work to be their best.
Katee McLean
Performance Food Service
Chef Katee McLean has always loved the Culinary Arts, a talent she comes by naturally and inherited from many family members. While McLean initially attended University Of Missouri for a degree in Food Science, she soon realized her passion was more aligned for a chef’s coat, rather than a lab coat. While researching Culinary Schools, she realized Johnson County Community College had a top rated Culinary Arts Program. McLean excelled in the program and was honored to be selected on the competitive culinary team, earning awards in Hong Kong and Singapore.
Loving all cultures of food, McLean began to think of her own Swedish heritage. Armed with determination, passion, and many mentors along the way, her journey into restaurant ownership began. Paying homage to her heritage, she opened Krokstrom and Vildhast. During her five year entrepreneurship, McLean earned Kansas City Chef of the Year and Restaurant of the Year along with numerous local and national media appearances including Food Network’s popular show “Diners, Drive Ins and Dives”.
McLean is a bold advocate for women and minorities in the business, attending numerous conferences local and nationally for the betterment of the work environment. Always excited and passionate about the overall goodness of food, McLean is involved in many projects in her community, including collaboration dinners benefiting local charities, distributing fresh fruit and vegetables to food deserts, and she is an active member in the local chapter of Les dames d’escoffier.
McLean remains eager to consult, mentor and encourage chefs and restaurant owners in the city, which has been a natural progression to her new career at Performance Foodservice, where her skills in culinary consulting can be shared with her clients daily.
Pam Liberda
Waldo Thai
Chef Pam Liberda was born in Lampang, Northern Thailand. She earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing at Mahidol University and emigrated to Kansas City in 1998. After falling in love with Teddy Liberda, who at the time owned Thai Place Restaurant chain, she decided to give up her nursing career and follow her passions in the culinary scene. She has since helped Teddy open eight restaurants.
Liberda took time to focus on raising their two daughters and providing a stable home environment for her family. With no formal training, she acquired her culinary skills by watching and cooking homestyle dishes alongside her mother growing up. Liberda’s passion for food led her to work with Cerner as the International Station Chef, cooking her international inspired cuisine daily for more than 500 patrons. Now, with her husband Teddy’s help and support, Liberda is running the show, preparing her own authentic, homestyle, delicious Thai food for the guests at Waldo Thai.
Liberda was voted “2021 Chef of the Year’ in Kansas City by Feast Magazine.
Laura Valdivia
Cliff's Taphouse
Chef Laura Valdivia started her career at Chacko’s Bakery on Johnson Drive where she worked for several years under the mentorship of Rachel Finn. Though she didn’t know at the time that she would end up in culinary, this is where she learned to cook and developed a fondness for ethnic foods. After a brief stint in healthcare, Valdivia landed a job with Michael Smith that solidified her career and passion for hospitality. She also worked for a number of local companies including Sporting KC, Nick and Jake’s, and Farm to Market Bread Co. Hit hard by the pandemic, Valdivia and Owner Larry decided to persevere and open up Cliff’s Taphouse; a year-long dream-come-true. Valdivia focuses on inclusivity and frames her menu around that, including ensuring there are options for all health and dietary needs.
Laura was voted “2021 Best New Chef “ by the Pitch KC.
Saranya Hubbard
Swordfish Tom’s
Born and raised in Bangkok, Thailand, Saranya Hubbard first started bartending in 2017 in the craft cocktail bar, Ku Bar in Bangkok. Ku Bar was voted as an “Asia 50 Best Bar” in 2018, and Saranya was grateful to begin her cocktail journey at such a respected and educational bar. A skilled and dedicated worker, Saranya soon became the Head Bartender at Ku Bar, overseeing operations and the cocktail program. During this time, she also worked as a food stylist in Bangkok. After moving to Kansas City, MO in 2020, she started behind the bar at Swordfish Tom’s and SOT in 2021. Her dream is to open a cocktail bar of her own one day, one that highlights and integrates the Japanese cocktail style.
Jenn Tosatto
Gael's Public House and Sports
Jenn Tosatto began her Bartending career in “a dark and awful frat bar” in Springfield Missouri. Though not the ideal setting, she dedicated herself to learning all she could and advancing within the industry. Her career took her to Kansas City where she began at Bar Natasha. She really cut her teeth behind the bar at Manifesto and The Rieger. You can currently find her behind the stick at Gael’s Pub and Sports, or at home with her amazing son, Brady.
Tosatto was a finalist in the Diageo World Class USA Competition in 2012, and was named the Best Bartender in 2012 by KC Magazine, and again in 2013 by 435 Magazine. She has received the People’s Choice for Best Bartender in The Pitch three times. She was also a founding member of the KC chapter of the United States Bartenders’ Guild.